Hi all. Here is a 50 size MD 500 that a mate managed to "bend" a little. I will help him fix it as he has hassles working with glass.
I will also have to extend the boom by about 5" to fit the longer boom of the mechanics.

Hi all. Here is a 50 size MD 500 that a mate managed to "bend" a little. I will help him fix it as he has hassles working with glass.
I will also have to extend the boom by about 5" to fit the longer boom of the mechanics.

Theuns

gel coat and alot of sanding ! i would start by finding gel coat at the local plastic suply "its cheaper there " and for the boom i dont have a clue other than finding anothe wrecked fuse and cutting what you need and grafting it on good luck .

On scalerchelis.com, there was a thread where a boom was repaired at a fly-in that was wrecked worse than that one. They make a tapered cone up to go inside the boom and I think it was covered with something like saran wrap so nothing stuck to it. They added glass over top and rebuilt it a layer at a time. I think the first step, however, was to use CA to get most of the large pieces back where they came from and then the glass was added over top. It was amazing to see how it was MacGivered together with litterally nothing, and flew on the last day of the weekend event. No get coat was used at the time, but the final rebuild was not shown. Take care.

Thanx for the tips guys.
What I need to do firs is to somehow claen off the small rough epoxy bead tha holds the two halves of the boom together. There is no glass joiner tape and this is why it split open.

As soon as I have an even surface I will join with glass strip and when structural I can do all the rest.
I will extend the boom by installing a central stabilizing rod in the back of the boom and using high density foam shaped to the correct size.
This will then be epoxy glassed over onto the old boom and later with loads of sanding I hope to get a nice joint.

It is basically the same tecnique I used to make the dog box plug and molod for the 222.

The trick will be to lesten the amount of re-painting I will have to do. We will try not to repaint the entre heli if it could be helped.
Theuns

Hi. My idea of cleanig off the existing epoxy bead to get even surface for the join glass would not work ,so I made a paste of epoxy and flox that I spread either side of the bead. This gave me a flat surface I can glass over tomorrow.

As for the gapinghole in the rear of the boom ,I taped a piece of cardboard over it to give the basic shape and then glassed the inside of the boom. I am sure this will be good enough to get a backing for the filler to go on.

I company that makes hobby resins was recommended to me to repair my Jet Ranger body. They recommended Z-Poxy finishing resin to do the outside final finish before primer and paint. That and a little fine glass cloth for deeper filling. They said that it sands very smooth and as such can be used as if it was a fine putty to fill in spots caused by chipped gelcoat or paint. I have not got to that project yet as there is still a chance of flying in the next couple of weeks before Winter really sets in here. Take care.

I know the finishing epoxy well. I buy my resins from a place that supply to the full size aircraft industy. It is way cheaper than using hobby stuff and I get batch #'s and epiery dates with the epoxy. I also get my glass cloth and micro balloons/flox from them.

The hobby industry sometimes uses the exact same stuff in smaller qualtities for loads more $.

As for the small chips in the gelcaot, I usually just fill and sand them if they are small enough. The hassle comes in when trying to touch up the paint. It becomes rather hard to do and get an absolutely glass smooth finish.

I just had a look and it seems the epoxy in the boom has cured, always a good sighn LOL!

Yea , the boom seems to be to short for the mechanics. Not exactlty sure why, but it should be better this time I hope.
More acurately it needs a 4" but I made a bit extra to give some thing to work with where I need to attach the the boom.

I will first do all the filling /sanding before removing the plug as it is more solid that way and less likely to get damaged.